Secondary Characters And How To Use Them

While trying to decide on a topic for today's blog, I was torn between a writing type topic or a more general area of discussion.  Since last two week's blogs have been a writing topic, I decided to continue along those lines.

A couple of days ago I was watching on old movie, the 1974 production of Agatha Christie's Murder On The Orient Express with its all star cast where almost everyone in the movie was a major character.  It occurred to me that there were very few characters other than the many primary ones (isolated on a train trapped by the snow is akin to a locked room mystery with no new characters added or current ones removed).  So I started thinking about secondary characters and how they can be used to prod, shove, and push the main characters into and along the necessary path for the story line.

So, let's talk a bit about secondary characters.

When I say secondary characters, I'm not referring to the minor characters that decorate a scene and maybe have a couple of lines of dialogue or only appear in one scene.  I'm talking about the characters who have a prominent place in your story but are not your main characters.  These are the characters you can use to maneuver your main characters into and along the path toward achieving the story goal.  They are a key factor in moving your story along and determining what direction it takes.

In developing these characters, they need to do more than merely be there—more than just someone for your main character to have lunch with. You need to decide what you want them to accomplish and how you want them to relate to and interact with your main characters in addition to each other in order to move your story line along to its conclusion.  Let's take a look at how a set of secondary characters can be used to move a story line in a specific direction.  Remember, it's not who they are, it's what they do and how they relate to the main characters and how the main characters respond to them.

Example:  You have a story about a teenager who is the leader of a gang that has been stealing cars for some mobsters.  You have two ways you can go with your main character, in other words, two directions your story line can take and you must choose one of them.  #1: he wants to leave the gang and make something of his life OR #2: he runs his gang with a iron hand and threatens anyone who wants out.

With scenario #1 your secondary characters who will influence the story line can be his girl friend, his little brother, and one of his teachers.  That tells you who they are (what their relationship is to your main character), but doesn't tell you how they move the story.  His girl friend fears for his safety and finally gives him the ultimatum to leave the gang or she's leaving him.  His little brother idolizes him and wants to be just like him, but he doesn't want his little brother to make the same mistakes he did.  His teacher is mentoring him by helping him with his studies and finding him an after school job.

With scenario #2 your secondary characters can be his girl friend, a rival gang leader, and his contact with the mobster who pays him for the stolen cars.  Again, that tells you who they are and what their relationship is to your main character but not what they do to move the story in a specific direction.  His girl friend demands more and more in the way of material things so he needs the money from stealing cars to keep her happy.  The rival gang leader is trying to take over his stolen car business so he has to watch his back at all times to protect himself and his own interests.  The mobster gives him access to the easy money he needs to keep his girl friend happy and the promise of being able to move into their organization and advance in the criminal world.

Each scenario has a girl friend, but her function is different in the two scenarios so that her character helps move the two story lines in two different directions.

One of the great things about secondary characters is that you can make them as outrageous, unconventional and over-the-top as you want.  You don't have the same parameters and cautions with secondary characters as you do with your main characters.  The main thing you need to be careful with in creating your secondary character is to not make them more interesting than your main characters so that they don't steal the show and shove your main characters into the background.

A good example of secondary characters being over the top was the television situation comedy Will and Grace.  The secondary characters of Karen and Jack were totally outrageous while the main characters of Will and Grace were more grounded.

Any comments about developing and using secondary characters in your writing?  Or any television shows, movies, or books where the secondary characters stood out in your mind with the way they were able to guide and manipulate the story line?

Things I've Learned From Teaching A Fiction Writing Class

I taught a beginning fiction writing class at the state university in the adult continuing education non-credit department. It was two hours a night, one night a week, for eight weeks. I taught this class twice a year for sixteen years.

The eight weeks were broken up into the basics of fiction writing. The first week was about plot, second week developing characters, and so on. I covered things like point of view, pacing, dialogue, active vs. passive, show don't tell, and other basics of fiction writing. I used examples from various genres without concentrating on a specific one. The eighth week of the class dealt with information about publishing which included synopsis, query letter, contests, critique groups, submitting to publishers, editing, and related areas.

I give you that information as a prologue to what's on my mind about my fiction writing class.

It always amazed me each time I taught the class…I learned things, too. Well, more accurately, I RE-learned them. There were things I'd forgotten that came to mind again when I went over the lesson for that week's class. Things that I automatically did without consciously thinking about them. And then there was information I hadn't thought about until someone asked me a question that required me to pull the answer up from the back of my mind and convey it in a manner that made sense to someone taking a beginning writing class…fiction writing technique information I hadn't consciously considered for a while.

A technique I talked about as part of the first week covering plot was the Action-Reaction-Decision combination. This was one of those things I used when writing without really thinking about it as a technique. Each time I taught this class and defined the Action-Reaction-Decision combination, it seemed to hit me as a surprise as if I had never heard of it before. :)  One character's action elicited a reaction from the other character, then one of those characters made a decision concerning the situation. That decision propelled the story forward and led to the next situation.

Each scene needed to do something to move the over all story forward whether an action scene, dialogue, or narrative internalization dealing with character development. And the Action-Reaction-Decision combination is one of those techniques that did just that.

An example: Dressed in a scrap of slinky black, Mary strutted into the club (action). Mark took one look and his blood pressure skyrocketed (reaction). He had to get her out of there before she got arrested (decision). It was that decision that moved the story forward and led to the next action. Example: Mark grabbed her arm (action). But Mary refused to budge (reaction). She was going to have a drink and dance until dawn (decision).

This fed directly into and helped support the basic structure of story movement—cause and effect. Something happened and that caused something else to happen which resulted in moving the story forward toward its conclusion—cause and effect.

Each week I had something (at least one thing, usually more) that teaching the class brought to mind, techniques that I had forgotten, primarily things I did without thinking about them.

The second week of the class covered developing the characters. One exercise I gave the class had them use secondary characters to maneuver the main characters in the direction the story needed to go. (more of this in next week's blog about secondary characters) Your hero/heroine still did the work and resolved the story's conflict, but those secondary characters made a valuable contribution to moving the story forward.

And secondary characters were fun to work with. They don't have the restrictions that usually apply to your hero/heroine. A secondary character doesn't need to be in any way honorable or heroic or even likeable. Your secondary character could have lots of bad traits that the hero or heroine can't.

I enjoyed teaching a class about the basics of beginning fiction writing. And, of course, I enjoyed getting paid for it. :)  But in addition to that, I liked being reminded a couple of times a year about some of the specifics that tended to slip my mind…things I do but don't consciously think about.

Do you have any special writing techniques you'd like to share? 

Naming Your Characters

Last week I blogged about actors who change their names. This week I'm talking about determining the best name for your fictional characters.

Do your characters' names dictate their personalities?  There are probably several of you who are like me…you can't start writing your story or even plotting it until you have decided on the names of your main characters.  Even though I know who these characters are, they have to be named before I can continue.

A character's name can say a lot about him or her and even more when a nickname is used.  For example, if a character is named Elizabeth, that would convey a more formal type of person, such as Queen Elizabeth II.  But, give her the nickname of Liz and suddenly she's a lot more outgoing, ready to party.  On the other hand, give her the nickname of Beth and you have someone who is more shy, withdrawn, or introverted.  I realize those are stereotyped descriptions rather than fact, but they do give the reader a feel for the type of character you've created just from the name you've given her.  And the same applies to male names.  Someone named Henry is one type of character where Hank is a different type of person.  You have a Charles who is different from Charlie who is different from Chuck.

A recent survey of 3,000 British teachers said names can peg kids as potential troublemakers.  The poll reported that forty-nine percent of teachers said they make assumptions about students as soon as they see the names on the class roster.  However, while teachers may roll their eyes at certain names, fifty-nine percent of the teachers surveyed said those same kids are usually the most popular among their peers.

With some characters their names are obvious—no worries or concerns about what to name them.  Others seem to cause a lot of frustration.  That's when I turn to my baby naming books for possibilities and inspiration.

And once your character has a first name that suits him or her, then there's the last name to think about.  Where the first name needs to be a fit for the character, the last name can reflect on that character's family background.  Sometimes that's an important element of your story and character development and other times it's not.

On one occasion when I was stuck for a surname, I literally closed my eyes, opened the phone book, and put my finger on the page.  And that was what I used as the character's last name.  It was a minor character, so I wasn't trying to convey any type of an image or using the name to give information to the reader. And the mere fact that I used a phone book tells you it was a long time ago when that happened since in today's reality the phone company has stopped putting out phone books for obvious reasons--phone service being connected to your cable and internet service (various companies available in a single market) and the use of cell phones rather than the traditional land line.

What type of considerations do you use when naming your fiction people, especially your main characters?  Any special tricks you use to come up with names?  Have you ever named a character after a friend or relative (I'm assuming with their permission)?  Do you keep a list of names you've used so you don't repeat?

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Good question.  Just ask some of the Hollywood celebrities whose careers would probably never have gotten off the ground using the name they were born with.

Back in the days when the movie studios literally ruled the performer's lives with iron-fisted control—told the stars which movies they were allowed to make, who they could date, hushed up affairs, covered up pregnancies of unwed actresses, made drunk driving arrests go away and paid off victims, and in some instances it's even rumored that they covered up murder—they also controlled the star's name.

Nowadays it's a matter of individual choice whether or not a celebrity wants to select a name more suited to his/her career with some nearly unpronounceable names appearing on the marquee belonging to celebrities who chose to stay with their real name…something that never would have been allowed in the golden days of the studios.

Here are a few celebrities, some of them old school and others current, whose name change definitely helped their careers.

Fred Astaire, certainly one of the greatest dancers of the 20^th century, but would he have been as successful as Frederick Austerlitz?  And what about his partner from many of his films, Ginger Rogers?  Would she have been as popular as Virginia Katherine McMath?

And then there's Mariska Hargitay's mother, Vera Jayne Palmer.  She might not have been as successful without the name change to Jayne Mansfield.  And Mariska's co-star on Law & Order—SVU, would Tracy Morrow be as interesting as Ice-T is, especially for someone who started his career as a rapper?

How many women would actually have swooned over the man who is considered one of "Hollywood's all-time definitive romantic leading men" if Archibald Alexander Leach hadn't changed his name to Cary Grant?

Would that famous Jack Benny stare have been as funny coming from Benjamin Kubelsky?

What about a movie marquee announcing Roy Harold Scherer, Jr. and Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff rather than Rock Hudson and Doris Day?

Would "Missed it by that much!" or "would you believe…" have been such great catch phrases if they had been uttered by Donald James Yarmy rather than Don Adams?

Would Boris Karloff have been anywhere near as frightening if he had kept his birth name of William Henry Pratt?

Would Wolfgang Puck have been as successful as a chef and restauranteur under the name of Wolfgang Johannes Topfschnig?

Would we be as mesmerized by the magical illusions of David Copperfield if they were being performed by David Seth Kotkin?

Would Whoopi Goldberg be as funny if she was working under her real name of Caryn Elaine Johnson?

We have that teenage song and dance team from those old MGM musicals, Joseph Yule, Jr., and Frances Ethel Gumm.  Would they have been as successful if they hadn't changed their names to Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland?

And what about one of the most famous comedy teams in show business history, Crocetti and Levitch?  You probably know them better as Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

What about Bernard Schwartz?  Would he ever have been as popular if he hadn't changed his name to Tony Curtis?

And Sir Elton John, does he look like a Reginald Kenneth Dwight?

Can you picture Tina Fey as Elizabeth Stamatina Fey?

Or Jamie Foxx as Eric Marlon Bishop?

Would Oscar winner Ben Kingsley's statuette be the same with the name Krishna Pandit Bhanji engraved on it?

Can you picture Elvis Costello as Declan Patrick MacManus?

There are so many more that I could have listed here, the famous who changed their name in pursuit of a career.  Some from days of yore and others current.  Do you have any particular favorite celebrities who have chosen to do the name change?